Dr Ramzy Baroud ( internationally syndicated columnist, a media consultant, founder of PalestineChronicle.com and an author of “ Searching Jenin”, “The Second Palestinian Intifada”, and “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story”) on new Israeli Apartheid laws after UNSC Resolution 2334 (2017): “The so-called "Regulation Bill" will retroactively validate 4,000 illegal structures built on private Palestinian land. In the occupied Palestinian territories, all Jewish settlements are considered illegal under international law, as further indicated in UNSC Resolution 2334. There are also 97 illegal Jewish settlement outposts - a modest estimation - that are now set to be legalised and, naturally, expanded at the expense of Palestine. The price of these settlements has been paid mostly by US taxpayers' money, but also the blood and tears of Palestinians, generation after generation.It is important, though, that we realise that Israel's latest push to legalise illegal outposts and annex large swaths of the West Bank is the norm, not the exception. Indeed, the entire Zionist vision for Israel was achieved based on the illegal appropriation of Palestinian land. Wasn't so-called "Israel proper" - as in land obtained by force from 1948 to 1967 - originally Palestinian land?...
The greatest mistake that the Palestinian leadership has committed (aside from its disgraceful disunity) was entrusting the US, Israel's main enabler, with managing a "peace process" that has allowed Israel time and resources to finish its colonial projects, while devastating Palestinian rights and political aspirations. Returning to the same old channels, using the same language, seeking salvation at the altar of the same old "two-state solution" will achieve nothing, but to waste further time and energy. It is Israel's obstinacy that is now leaving Palestinians (and Israelis) with one option, and only one option: equal citizenship in one single state or a horrific apartheid. No other "solution" suffices.In fact, the Regulation Bill is further proof that the Israeli government has already made its decision: consolidating apartheid in Palestine. If Trump and May find the logic of Netanyahu's apartheid acceptable, the rest of the world shouldn't.In the words of former President Jimmy Carter, "Israel will never find peace until it ... permit(s) the Palestinians to exercise their basic human and political rights." That Israeli "permission" is yet to arrive, leaving the international community with the moral responsibility to exact it” (Ramzy Baroud, “Israel’s settlement law: consolidating apartheid. Israel's obstinacy is leaving Palestinians with one option: Equal citizenship in one state or a horrific apartheid”, Al Jazeera, 9 February 2017:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/02/israel-settlement-law-land-theft-legal-170208083626345.html ).